Grieg’s Piano Concerto – Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra

“Easy on the banjos!” warned Eric Morecambe when André Previn (or Andrew Preview) famously attempted to conduct the Grieg Piano Concerto in the classic 1971 Morecambe and Wise Christmas Special.  The one time I ever saw a banjo on stage with the RLPO my Facebook post quoting this zinging one-liner garnered precisely zero likes.  It must be a generation thing.

For this 2024 performance, Liverpool welcomed back its prodigal son and former Chief Conductor, Vasily Petrenko. Turning from the podium, orchestra poised to start, to acknowledge an errant mobile phone ringtone with a wry raise of the eyebrow, he held the audience in the palm of his hand – comic timing worthy of the much-missed double act themselves.

First on the programme was Bohuslav Martinů’s La Bagarre, composed whilst the Czech composer was still a student in Paris with clear influences from French classical music, jazz, and popular song.  Inspired by the rowdy crowd which gathered to watch aviator Charles Lindburgh’s landing from his historic transatlantic flight, a chance meeting with the conductor Serge Koussevitzsky in a Parisien café led to its premiere in Boston in 1927.  Soaring and chattery strings contrasted with punchy brass in this early work in Martinů’s catalogue.

Macedonian piano virtuoso Simon Trpčeski was the man charged with “putting all the right notes … in the right order” in the famous Piano Concerto in A minor by Norwegian Edvard Grieg. The concerto starts with a famous timpani roll (played, in a wonderful example of nominative determinism, by percussionist Neil Hitt), before Trpčeski, with a lightness of touch contrasting with a grandeur of tone, brought the concerto to life.  And, if the first desk of strings looked captivated with Trpčeski’s playing during the first movement candenza, the pianist himself looked on in admiration at some of the fine solos from the orchestra’s principals on flute (Cormac Henry), French horn (Tim Jackson), and rich, sonorous cello, playing beautifully low in its register (Jonathan Aasgaard).  In fact, Trpčeski seemed to want a co-conducting credit as he swooned and slumped his way through some of the more dramatic orchestral sections.

An appreciative Liverpool audience was treated to two encores, also by Grieg. The lively Rigaudon, from the Holberg Suite (originally written for piano, explained Trpčeski, with a cheeky smile to the string section who may wish to claim it as their own), and a beautiful simple Arietta, from the first book of lyric pieces.

The stage was filled in the second half by a large orchestra, including quadruple woodwind (4 each of oboes, bassoons, flutes and clarinets), no fewer than 3 harps and a bevvy of offstage brass for Stravinsky’s ballet score The Firebird (1910).  In a real ‘sliding doors’ moment, impresario Sergei Diaghilev seemingly commissioned a score from Anatoly Lyadov which was never delivered, and the head of the Parisien Ballets Russes company instead turned to the relatively unknown Igor Stravinsky to write the music.  And what a sensational piece it is.

From the eerie, low unison strings at the start through to the thrilling finale guaranteed to set the hairs on the back of your neck on end, it’s easy for modern audiences to forget how shocking and revolutionary this music was to its original audiences, with driving rhythms, striking harmony, and orchestral techniques like flutter-tonguing, playing with the wood of the bow (col legno), and sliding notes in a glissando.

Their later collaboration, The Rite of Spring, famously provoked a riot, but it was a riot of colour, splendour and magnificence with which the RLPO finished this concert.   A well-deserved five stars.

Reviewer: Mark Humphreys

Reviewed: 22nd February 2024

North West End UK Rating: